Archive for January 2008

Can a Movie Predict the 2008 Election?

As the lines between Hollywood and Washington have blurred while reality flickers uncertainly in our living rooms, we have become decidedly nervous about whether our politics are scripted by some bizarre combination of Jim Carrey and Oliver Stone. As Susan Sontag once perceptively observed, “reality has come to seem more and more like what we are shown by cameras.” So we should not be surprised to learn there is a Hollywood formula that has shown an amazing ability to predict American presidential election winners. This crystal ball has been wrong only once–in 1912 when Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican party.

Ronald Reagan understood the formula almost as well as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But then Reagan was an actor. Jimmy Carter understood and then forgot. Hubert Humphrey may have grasped it as well as any post-World War II politician, but had trouble translating it from his state to a national stage and then at crucial moments lost sight of it. John Kennedy went to Dallas hoping to recover a formula he feared losing.

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Hillary Clinton, John McCain win in New Hampshire

HILLARY Clinton won the Democratic Party nomination in the New Hampshire presidential primary while Republican John McCain had a back-from-the dead victory.

It was a much-needed win for Clinton, righting her listing campaign.

Defying public opinion polls that anointed Barack Obama a double-digit favorite, and overcoming a third-place defeat in the Iowa caucus last week, Clinton won the state primary that saved her husband's own presidential campaign in 1992.

"Now together let's give America the kind of comeback that New Hampshire has just given me," the jubilant New York senator told supporters. "We are in it for the long run."

With 80 per cent of precincts reporting, Clinton was up 39 per cent to 36 per cent for Obama.

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Obama Costs Irish Bookie $75,000

DUBLIN, January 7, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Ireland's largest bookmaker, Paddy Power, are today claiming that the Democratic Nomination race is well and truly over and are already paying out on Barack Obama to be the successful Democratic nominee.

The early payout signals a massive EUR50,000 ($75,000) payday to lucky punters who backed Obama over the recent number of weeks at various odds ranging from 4/1 to 4/9.

The unexpected decision by the Irish bookmaking firm comes almost a week after the Iowa primary election and just a day before the New Hampshire primary election where Barack is now the odds on favourite at 1/12 to demolish his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Paddy Power, said: "From a betting point of view we reckon that it's game over for Hillary. With each passing day Obama is looking more like a certainty to get the Democratic vote and as far as we're concerned he's already past the post. So well done to all who backed him, your winnings await!"

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Corporate Girl--Hillary Clinton--REFUSED to do interview with Michael Moore

A new year has begun. And before we've had a chance to break our New Year's resolutions, we find ourselves with a little more than 24 hours before the good people of Iowa tell us whom they would like to replace the man who now occupies three countries and a white house.

Twice before, we have begun the process to stop this man, and twice we have failed. Eight years of our lives as Americans will have been lost, the world left in upheaval against us... and yet now, today, we hope against hope that our moment has finally arrived, that the amazingly powerful force of the Republican Party will somehow be halted. But we know that the Democrats are experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and if there's a way to blow this election, they will find it and do it with gusto.

Do you feel the same as me? That the Democratic front-runners are a less-than-stellar group of candidates, and that none of them are the "slam dunk" we wish they were? Of course, there are wonderful things about each of them. Any one of them would be infinitely better than what we have now. Personally, Congressman Kucinich, more than any other candidate, shares the same positions that I have on the issues (although the UFO that picked ME up would only take me as far as Kalamazoo). But let's not waste time talking about Dennis. Even he is resigned to losing, with statements like the one he made yesterday to his supporters in Iowa to throw their support to Senator Obama as their "second choice."

So, it's Hillary, Obama, Edwards -- now what do we do?

Two months ago, Rolling Stone magazine asked me to do a cover story where I would ask the hard questions that no one was asking in one-on-one interviews with Senators Clinton, Obama and Edwards. "The Top Democrats Face Off with Michael Moore." The deal was that all three candidates had to agree to let me interview them or there was no story. Obama and Edwards agreed. Mrs. Clinton said no, and the cover story was thus killed.

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Decision time for voters in 2008 with big election year

SAN JUAN COUNTY — Any year with 366 days — a leap year — denotes a presidential election. The coming year, 2008, falls into that category.

Besides the high-energy, highly visible, high-dollar event that is a presidential election, other contests will be decided in San Juan County this year.

The first of those is scheduled March 4 when voters in Aztec, Bloomfield and Farmington decide the winners of the municipal elections.

Up next, June 3 to be specific, is the county's primary election, which sets up much of the Nov. 4 ballot.

And then — drum roll please — the late-night ramble comprising the watching of returns, waiting with bated breath, knuckle-gnawing presidential election experience. Other state and national races also will be decided on the first Tuesday in November.

"At some point during the year the Democrats will hold their caucus election, but we don't have anything to do with that," said Debbie Holmes, deputy San Juan County clerk.

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Small-town Iowans, struggling in hard times, look for some empathy

Gabby Johnston, 25, is working at her second shift, serving up the creamed chicken special to regulars at the counter in Ken's Northside Cafe.

And this is her daily grind, Mr. and Mrs. Presidential Candidate: Johnston works two jobs - 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in day care, plus evenings and weekends in the cafe - while trying to feed and care for three kids under age 5. Not to mention the long, cold winter with her husband, a construction worker, laid off.

"There's lots of people like her," Lew Jordan, 78, a longtime customer of the cafe, said of Johnston. And he framed the question on the minds of many like-minded Iowa voters: "Did any of these (candidates) ever talk to a blue-collar worker?"

With just days to go before Iowa's caucuses, Jordan's challenge - and Johnston's economic plight - may be one of the most critical and unpredictable measures that determines who will come out on top in the first official vote of the 2008 presidential election.

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US Presidential Contenders Enter Final Week Before Iowa Vote

U.S. presidential contenders are making a final push for votes with one week to go until the first test of the 2008 election campaign, the Iowa presidential caucuses on January 3. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has a preview from Washington.

Democratic presidential hopeful, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton responds during the Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate, 13 Dec. 2007 For the next week, the Midwest state of Iowa will be the center of the U.S. political universe as the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates make a closing appeal for support.

In the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, the latest polls show a tight race among three contenders, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina and Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.

"We know that the next president will face a daunting agenda," Clinton said.

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Giuliani Secrecy

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has long described his City Hall as an open book. But at least one First Amendment authority is finding reason to disagree.

Attorney Floyd Abrams says Giuliani "ran a government as closed as he could make it."

An Associated Press review of public record suggests Giuliani's City Hall had a reputation of resistance toward open government.

In his time in office, advocacy and oversight groups were required to file freedom of information requests for documents -- a process that could take months and rack up legal costs. A judge in one such case wrote, "The law provides for maximum access, not maximum withholding."

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Giuliani Admitted to Hospital With Flu-Like Symptoms, AP Says

Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani was admitted to a hospital while campaigning in Missouri after experiencing flu-like symptoms, the Associated Press reported, citing his campaign spokeswoman.

Giuliani decided to go to the hospital in St. Louis late yesterday to spend the night after symptoms worsened, AP cited campaign spokeswoman Katie Levinson as saying. The former New York City mayor felt discomfort after his plane took off from an airport in Chesterfield, Missouri, prompting the aircraft to turn back.

``To be on the safe side, the mayor consulted with his personal physician in New York and made the decision to go to the Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis for routine tests,'' the newswire cited Levinson as saying.

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